GUEST BLOG: INDIAN FOOD IN AMSTERDAM.

I was beyond surprised when Navneet "Caesar" Garodia volunteered to write a guest blog entry for Essential Luxuries. When he is not busy running the town, Nav can usually be found calculating math equations or watching 3D movies. Being as he is not from this country, his command of the English language is rather shoddy - short sleeves become "half sleeves," daiquiri becomes "dak-eerie," and ping pong becomes a sport. Nevertheless, with the help of Google translate, an electronic Hindi-English dictionary, and Thesaurus.com, Navneet was able to produce this nearly seamless blog post that follows. Without further ado...

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Madras Indian Restaurant, Amsterdam
by Navneet Garodia
Translation by Google.com/Translate

Let me start off this guest blog by thanking you, o reader, for inspiring creativity. Since I'm a big fan of this blog (you are a close second), I am taking the liberty of sharing one of my culinary experiences with you.

My Euro trip began on 7/8/10, and I had gone more than a week without consuming Indian food. At this juncture, I would like to quote my uncle, who had once very famously said that a tiger can go a week without eating meat, but an Indian cannot go a week without eating Indian food. True to his theory, I succumbed to the aroma of Indian food on the 7th day, as I was walking through the streets of Amsterdam.

Madras Indian Restaurant looked like a typical Indian restaurant- the lighting was tastefully dim, there were a couple of TVs screening lavish song and dance sequences, with mellow Bollywood music playing in the background. The menu had a lot to offer, and did wonders to whet my appetite. Since I had been craving Indian food, I decided to go all out. I ordered 2 dishes- Mixed Vegetable Curry and Dal Makhni, along with an order of rice.


Within 30 minutes, I was regaled with the chef's offerings. However, what I saw wasn't really what I had been expecting. Dal Makhni, which is typically brown in color, was presented as a yellow lentil. I bit my lip.


The vegetable curry didn't do much to bolster my flagging spirit. There seemed to be more vegetables in the pot than gravy, and the dish was lacking in texture. I proceeded to scoop out my first spoonful and slop it over the rice.


As the flavor pervaded my taste buds, my discomfiture increased. The lentils tasted like corn, and the rice seemed slightly undercooked. I began to dread the thought of paying 16 Euros for this meal, and gulped down a whole glass of water. The idea of returning to New York and getting a table at Dhaba has never looked better!

Sparky